


the ex factor

by naegahosh



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Break Up, Fluff, Getting Back Together, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, lots of casual cussing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 13:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8329315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naegahosh/pseuds/naegahosh
Summary: They broke up. Again. For the 923478329429th time.This one’s for real though.





	

It’s over. _They_ are over. For real, this time.

Should’ve seen it coming, really, with the number of times he’s dumped and got dumped being proportionate to the number of times they’d had hot, rough, borderline bizarre make-up sex—not gonna lie, he’d been half convinced that was why they ‘broke up’ so much—it honestly shouldn’t be a fucking surprise. But for some reason, it _is_ , because it feels different from the plenty of break-ups they’d had prior to this one, and not just because Lee fucking Seokmin hasn’t come bursting through his apartment door, clutching to a single stem of rose in one hand and a new box of condoms in the other.

Not that Soonyoung’s thought about letting him off that easy.

No, it’s official because well… and Soonyoung racks his brain, which starts running like clockwork. His fingers drum anxiously against the table, just inches away from his stagnant phone.

His tapping ceases. Fuck. It really _is_ because he hasn’t seen or heard from Lee Seokmin for twenty whole days. Which is probably the furthest he’s gone in his three years of relationship with the fucking asshole. Or even just in the entirety of ten unfortunate years of having known Lee Seokmin almost half his life.

As it did with each and every one of their break-ups, it first started off with something minor and stupid. Soonyoung can’t be sure anymore but it might’ve had something to do with Seokmin clipping his nails without a trashcan—or was it leaving his used towels on the floor?—until Seokmin pointed out Soonyoung should start learning how to flush the toilet before he talks, or was he too busy sneaking out to go clubbing without him knowing?

It’s an invitation for a fight, clearly, and after hours of proliferated accusations and blaming faults back and forth, Soonyoung’s filter expires with a burst—why does Seokmin have to take so _long_ , like so goddamn _long_ , fiddling around with his nipples before shoving his fucking dick inside him?

There’s a refreshing pause of silence.

“I thought you liked it.” Seokmin glares.

“It’s called _fore_ play, Seok-ah, I want you to get to the fucking point.”

“You said you _liked_ it.” Seokmin repeats again, with more force this time.

“My god, this is why I can’t say I like anything without being overly cautious anymore.” Soonyoung snaps, collecting the dirty towels on the floor and heading over to the bathroom to throw them into the hamper.

(Oh, so it was the towels. Soonyoung remembers now.)

The point is, he doesn’t even get to see Seokmin’s face when he gets dumped.

“Fine, if I’m not good enough for you, we should just stop this whole thing.”

There’s a halt to his movements, very momentarily, before Soonyoung resumes dropping the towels and pokes his head out.

“Are you breaking up with me?”

He sees the look on Seokmin’s face, and something solid thuds onto the bottom of his stomach. It doesn’t hurt him to an extent of a brick, but it’s still hard and heavy. A handful of pebbles, if he’s being generous. Seokmin’s jaws are clenched hard, eyes sharp and burning, and his face is as red as his boxer briefs he’s been using to dry Soonjji’s hamster ball. It’s his dead serious face, and it has Soonyoung’s blood boiling because it means he’s dead serious about breaking up with him.

All of a sudden, Soonyoung’s fed up too.

“Don’t answer that, shut _up_ —” He barks when Seokmin opens his mouth to answer, “You’re not breaking up with me, _I’m_ breaking up with _you._ ”

“Oh, you fucking wish.” Seokmin scowls, and there’s a series of cussing, curses on their children’s children, and a whole lot of fucks thrown at each other before Seokmin walks out of his apartment and ultimately, out of Soonyoung’s life.

Soonyoung is fine with this. They’ve met their three-year glitch, and their relationship was bound to be over sooner or later. It’s not the healthiest break-up he’s had, but it’s a valuable life experience and Soonyoung can learn from this.

…Such as never let your boyfriend leave their traces in your home, let alone their stupid, _stupid_ belongings.

It’s a fucking nuisance. They may have been dating for three years, but Soonyoung’s known Seokmin for ten years. They fucking grew up together. There’s Lee Seokmin everywhere. His long, pretty fingers had brushed over every corner and inch of his house at some point in the past, and the dry, crusty contact lens that Soonyoung occasionally steps on reminds him of his ex, telling him that it’s been over since 6:18pm, twenty days ago, so get the fuck over it.

So Soonyoung complies. But getting rid of Lee Seokmin is a lot of work, that uncooperative fuck. Both physically and emotionally. He’s forced to feel guilty when he unintentionally rips Mr. Yoon Dohyun’s face while taking YB posters off the wall. Forced to suppress the dire urge to smash Seokmin’s dumb humidifier every time he sees it, because as much as he’d love to, it actually costs as much as the ridiculous thing looks like fine china.

And finally, he can’t do anything about Soonjji, a Campbell’s dwarf hamster that Seokmin bought him a few months ago. Apparently the tint of grey on the tiny rodent reminded him too much of Soonyoung and his new bluish-grey hair to just pass by.

Bringing his legs towards his chest, Soonyoung glares at Soonjji. Soonjji stops running on her wheel to take a break, takes a sunflower seed from her bowl, spends about three to four seconds to eat it, and goes back on the wheel. She’s so cute— _fuck_ —that Soonyoung wants to phone Lee Seokmin and tell him to go to hell.

A distraction is what he needs. Soonyoung grabs his cell to call Seungkwan instead.

“Hey, wanna hang out tonight?”

“Sure, my class ends at nine.” Seungkwan chirps back. “Can we go to Craft’s? I’m craving sweet potato fries and they make the best ones there.”

“No.” Soonyoung replies flatly.

Seokmin got so wasted over at Craft’s one time that the owner of the pub actually called him to come pick him up after closing, and trying to peel Seokmin off the floor while the employees mopped around his dumb shit of a (ex)boyfriend, was definitely not something Soonyoung wanted to revive tonight. He tries to think of a place that is absolutely clean and free of Lee Seokmin’s traces.

“Kay,” Seungkwan sounds annoyed, “I’ll see you at Whee Ryung then.”

“Not there either.” Soonyoung rubs his temples. That pub was Seokmin’s go-to chill zone and he wasn’t taking any risks.

“The Neon?”

“Fuck, no.”

 _God_ , no. They fucked in the third bathroom stall like last month.

“Hyung, what the hell.” Seungkwan says crossly. “You pick then.”

“Okay, how about…” Soonyoung starts thoughtfully. He doesn’t really get anywhere. “Uh…”

Wow. There’s not a single place around that doesn’t carry any fragments of _them_. Their memories. Him and Seokmin doing stupid, shitty, hilarious things together.

Seungkwan breathes on the line, and Soonyoung can tell that the younger male’s getting impatient.

“Why don’t we just join your boyfriend then? Seokmin hyung texted me a while ago saying he was over at—”

“Boo Seungkwan!” Soonyoung screams. Seungkwan stops.

Soonyoung’s struck in awe—mostly at his own stupidity—that he’d forgotten that Seungkwan is not only _his_ friend, but Seokmin’s friend as well. And by the looks of it, Seokmin doesn’t seem to have told him that they’re no longer together. _He_ could though, now, and in fact it would make the most perfect timing, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know why. He just doesn’t want to.

“Um, Kwannie? Sorry, I changed my mind.” Soonyoung apologizes. It wasn’t going to matter wherever they went if Seungkwan was going to unintentionally bring Seokmin up the whole night. It takes immense strength and determination though, because what Soonyoung really wants to do is ask where Seokmin is and how Seokmin is and who is Seokmin with, and does Seokmin still look mighty fucking hot?

He swallows. “Can we hang out next time?”

Seungkwan is quiet for a moment, then he snaps, “Hyung, never call me again, okay?” before he heartlessly hangs up.

Alright, so maybe he just lost a boyfriend and a close dongsaeng within less than a month, but at least Soonyoung is a popular guy. He has trucks of people to hang out with. He scrolls down the list of contacts on his phone when his smile starts vanishing slowly.

Seungcheol hyung. He and Seokmin were gym buddies.

Jeonghan hyung isn’t going to work either, Seokmin is Jeonghan’s babo or something stupid like that—an inside joke of theirs that Soonyoung never found funny.

Jihoon… for someone that’s been around Soonyoung and Seokmin since the beginning, he’d pick up on everything within five seconds.

He passes on Wonwoo and Minghao—Seokmin’s roommates.

Mingyu is sort of more of Seokmin’s friend.

O god. Soonyoung blanches. Junhui, Jisoo hyung, Hansol, Chan… It’s utter bullshit—if they know Soonyoung, they know Seokmin.

Soonyoung throws his phone back on the table and buries his head into his knees. All he can hear is the squeaky sound of Soonjji running on her wheel.

Getting rid of Lee Seokmin, is fucking impossible.

 

-

 

Given his shitty circumstances, seeing a friend and hanging out for a drink without a certain someone lingering overhead is supposedly beyond the bounds of his capability. So Soonyoung drags his ass out to the nearest convenience store to stack up on beer.

The bell chimes as he pushes open the door, and Soonyoung stalks down the far aisle—by the contraceptives where Seokmin had nudged him in the ribs and giggled _jagiya, will you wear the bunny thingy tonight if I get ribbed condoms?_ —towards the coolers where he picks out two cans of beer—remarkably efficiently because there’s no Seokmin to whine _but I’m a soju type of guy!_ —and pads over to the cashier where there’s a crack over the glass counter because Soonyoung had pushed Seokmin as a joke, unknowing he would really trip, fall, and start bleeding from his head, and Soonyoung burst into tears until it was bloody Lee Seokmin—literally—comforting _him_ and fuck, fuck, fucking Lee Seokmin! FUCK!

Soonyoung throws his plastic bag of beers by the fridge and dives head first into his bed. He lets out a long, infuriated groan that gets muffled into his pillow, but it doesn’t lessen his frustration in any way because Lee Seokmin is still, prancing around in his brain with his honey horse thighs. Lee Seokmin, the cheerful, optimistic Lee Seokmin, who hasn’t called or texted in twenty days because he’s out drinking merrily according to Seungkwan, having forgotten all about him already and having a blast because—oh yeah, they broke up.

Soonyoung sits upright. He immediately wishes he hadn’t because his phone suddenly lights up.

 **seok** **♡**  
_hyujng_  
_soon &e-y0a_  
_u awkae?_  
_*aawke?_  
_fuck_  
_**awaek?_

Soonyoung’s brows crisscross viciously. There’s an emotional turmoil at hand—they’re going through a break-up, for god’s sake, a devastating process as much as hates to admit it—and this dickhead has the nerve to get shitfaced and drunk text him.

When the device starts ringing, a million possible scenarios flash through his mind. All of his efforts for the past twenty days would go down the drain if he answered, so Soonyoung just stares at his phone flashing his ex’s name, each passing second feeling like years. When the mobile finally goes dead, Soonyoung breathes out and mentally pats himself on the back. Quickly morphs it into a punch in his own face when the phone starts ringing two seconds later, and Soonyoung doesn’t hesitate to answer it this time.

“What.”

There’s a hitching sound of a gasp.

“Hyuuuuuuuung?”

“What.” Soonyoung says again, pulling his phone away from his ears when Seokmin shrieks,

“Hyuuuuuuuung!”

“ _What._ ”

“Hyuuuuuuuung…”

Soonyoung’s suddenly taken over by an impulse to chuck his phone out the window. It’s just a drunk call, nothing special or important, just Lee Seokmin being a drunken piece of shit because it’s a _habit_. Seokmin’s still mumbling incoherently, doing the impossible of transporting the stench of alcohol through the line.

“My Soonie… Soonie wasn’t sleeping because Soonie was thinking about Seokminnie… Soonie… Soonjji…? Is Soonjji there…? Can I talk to Soonjji…?”

Soonyoung listens, mostly because he’s speechless, and he blanks out for a second. Then as if someone’s just slapped his face cold, Soonyoung wakes up to a swirling mixture of anger and disappointment sweeping over his thoughts.

“Go walk in traffic, Lee Seokmin!” He yells, cheeks flushing red and eyes smarting up. “You’ll never see Soonjji ever again!!”

The phone lands on the floor as Soonyoung throws the covers over himself and smashes his face into his pillows. He drags his lower lip between his teeth, trying not to give in, compelled to think of every little thing Lee Seokmin has done to piss him off, but then he automatically remembers Seokmin’s sweet efforts to make up for it, and Soonyoung starts crying.

Not crying as in like a tear or two rolling down from his eyes, but as in succumbing to ugly sobbing. He bawls his eyes out for the first time since the break-up, unable to tell if it’s because he’s sad or mad—Lee Seokmin must’ve driven him to the brink of insanity. It’s not that hard to believe, when Seokmin’s face, smile, and voice follows him around everywhere he goes and won’t leave him alone, and it’s incredibly unfair for him to just disappear one day when he’s spent _years_ melting his presence in every aspect of his life.

Were break-ups always so painful? He doesn’t remember them being this insufferable in high school when he ended his relationships—he always had Lee Seokmin to call out no matter what time of day it was, and the idiot would always come running for him in his worn out Adidas slippers.

Soonyoung cries harder, wetting his pillow with snot, spit and tears, when he hears a loud disturbance over his own wailing.

“Hyuuuuuuung!” It’s Seokmin, shouting on the top of his lungs. His front door starts rattling alarmingly. “Open up, it’s meeeeeee! Your Seokminnieeeeee!!”

Soonyoung bolts up in bed, view blurred by his sticky eyelashes, but nevertheless stares into the direction of his front door in disbelief. It’s one in the morning, and he can’t believe Lee Seokmin has the fucking _nerve_ —there’s a spark of rage and Soonyoung seethes, but when the yelling becomes louder and the knocking becomes pounding, a surge of mortification rides over everything else.

“Soonie-yaaaaaaa! Kwon Soonyouuuuuung!! Seokminnie is heeeeeeeeere!!”

Soonyoung briefly contemplates on throwing the door wide open so that it somehow knocks Seokmin unconscious, but a neighbour snarls in the distance at that moment—“Oh my god, somebody make him shut up!”—that he quickly unlocks the door and slips him inside.

“Soonie-yaaaaaaa! Soonie—oh! It’s Soonie!”

“What the _hell_ are you doing here?” Soonyoung hisses, the smell of alcohol reeking from Seokmin’s body and etching a scowl onto his brow.

Seokmin almost collapses into him, winding his arms around Soonyoung’s neck and burying his nose into his collars. He laughs, then quietly mumbles,

“It’s Soonie smell…”

Soonyoung lashes him off. Fucking unbelievable. Although Seokmin did not have the right to come unexpectedly and shake his grounds, _he_ was unbelievably weak.

He drags Seokmin and seats him on a chair, purposely not looking at him.

“Sit here and stay quiet, I’m going to ask Minghao to come and get you.”

“But this is for—” In his peripherals, he sees Seokmin holding up a rose. Soonyoung just walks over to his bed, picks up his phone on the floor to dial Minghao, and Seokmin finishes weakly. “—Soonjji.”

When he doesn’t earn a response, Seokmin shuffles over to where Soonjji is busy running on her wheel and sets the rose next to her cage. He drops to the ground with a hurtful thud, but soju seems to have numbed his nerves in more than a few ways.

“Here. I just had some things to say.” He starts talking to the tiny grey hamster, and Soonyoung raises a brow as he plops down on the edge of his bed. Minghao doesn’t pick up.

“Soonjji-ya…” Seokmin begins slowly, tongue slightly twisted. “I missed you. I missed your pretty little eyes, nose, and mouth, the way you fit perfectly in my hands, and I really missed you telling me to fuck off before pecking me on the mouth.”

Soonyoung pauses before he presses the call button over Wonwoo’s name.

“Nothing’s fun anymore without you.” Seokmin sniffles, “Without you life is so dull, soju tastes like shit, and why did you leave so many of your stuff lying around at my place?”

His shoulders start shaking, and Seokmin rubs his eyes to wipe away a pool of tears.

“It’s not fair, you did something to me that now I can’t live without you,” He hiccups between sobs. “Not that I’m blaming you. It’s my fault, I’m sorry, I don’t want us to end, and I don’t want to keep forcing myself to not think about you.”

Soonyoung watches silently as Seokmin continues to cry, and Soonjji jumps off her wheel to hover over her food bowl. She sees Seokmin, approaches him, and puts a paw over the cage bar. Seokmin gently places a finger over her adorably small white paw.

“Can we not break up?”

After detecting that Seokmin has no sunflower seeds in his hand, Soonjji leaves without another moment to linger.

“What happened to growing up old as grandparents togetherrrrrr…?”

Seokmin whimpers after Soonjji, and when he bursts into another fit of sobs, Soonyoung gets up. Walks over, picks up the rose, and crouches next to Seokmin. With his eyes red and puffy, Seokmin lifts his chin to lock gazes with him, and Soonyoung tries not to laugh because how the fuck did Lee Seokmin manage to get cuter within the past twenty days?

He didn’t. Got uglier, if anything, from the excessive crying and being inebriated beyond repair, but Soonyoung is still pathetically in love and can barely maintain a straight face. He rubs his thumb over Seokmin’s teary eyes, removing gunk between his eyelashes.

“Aigoo, gramps,” Soonyoung squawks in his best grandma voice, “you brought this for gramma?”

Seokmin nods, struggling to do his best impression of the grandpa voice despite how emotional he is. “Only for you, gramma.” His voice flips from a hiccup, “Will you get back together with this gramps?”

Soonyoung almost grabs Seokmin’s cheeks and presses their lips together.

“Yeah, sure.” He responds as casually as he can and heads over to the kitchen to fill up an empty wine bottle with tap water. Plunks the rose into the bottle, sets it on the counter top and comes back, to find Seokmin still sniffling— _is Soonie really going to take him back?_

“I said yes, Seokmin.” Soonyoung tells him, voice light and musical, as he lifts his disheveled boyfriend up and steers him to bed. “Go to sleep now.”

What he doesn’t foresee, is Seokmin refusing to fall asleep and whining into his ears for the hundredth time at three in the morning. Less than an hour into their renewed relationship, Soonyoung tells him to shut the fuck up.

 

-

 

“Oh _god_ ,” Seokmin grunts, looking like he’s been hit by a train called Hangover Express. He rubs his ginormous puffy eyes, looks around, does a double take at Soonyoung, and whispers, “Oh _god._ ”

“Good morning to you too.” Soonyoung snorts, setting down two warm bowls of congee and a plate of kimchi on the breakfast table. “This ought to relieve your stomach.”

Face flushing in embarrassment, Seokmin scratches his neck as he slips into seat. He inspects Soonyoung’s expression with caution, and opens his mouth before he dunks his spoon into his bowl.

“Hyung.”

He continues when Soonyoung starts eating without showing any particularly violent response.

“I’m sorry.”

Soonyoung looks up, his cheeks full. “…I’m sorry too.”

Seokmin smiles, sees the wine bottle vase on the kitchen counter top, and grins even wider.

“I love you.”

Fuck it, Soonyoung abandons pretending.

“You free this morning?”

Seokmin pauses to think. “Uh, I have psych class. Why?”

“Think you can head over to the convenience store and come back really quickly?”

Soonyoung says in a breath, breaking off eye contact and swirling his spoon around. Seokmin watches him swirl his spoon around until his eyes snap open and his lips curve upwards.

“Fuck, hyung. You’re so fucking hot, what the fuck?” Seokmin rushes to say, stuffing a huge spoonful into his mouth before getting up to head out. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“And Seok-ah,” Soonyoung calls, and Seokmin turns around from the door.

“Yeah?”

“I love you more.” He shoves food in his mouth and chews extra vigorously. “And I do like it when you, you know.”

It takes about three seconds for it to click and Seokmin starts smirking all smugly.

“I fucking knew it.”

Soonyoung flings his spoon at him.

**Author's Note:**

> i will not try to dodge if you want to fling a spoon at me for this entire Dumb Thing  
> +) despite me not writing about them as much, this pairing is my ultimate otp ;^; 
> 
> hope you enjoyed! any kudos, comments, or feedback is greatly appreciated ♡


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